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This water system marks the approach of the Rio Negro, the most remarkable of all the tributaries of the Amazon. In reality the main river still bore the name of the Solimoens, and it is only after the junction of the Rio Negro that it takes the name which has made it celebrated among the rivers of the globe. During this day the raft had to be worked under curious conditions.
Before the Indians can be reclaimed in large numbers, it is most likely they will become extinct as a race; but there is less difficulty with regard to the Mamelucos, who, even when the proportion of white blood is small, sometimes become enterprising and versatile people.Many of the Ega Indians, including all the domestic servants, are savages who have been brought from the neighbouring rivers the Japura, the Issa, and the Solimoens.
From the frontier of Brazil to Manaos, where the superb Rio Negro joins it, it takes the name of the Solimaes, or Solimoens, from the name of the Indian tribe Solimao, of which survivors are still found in the neighboring provinces.
Our canoe was a stoutly built igarite, arranged for ten paddlers, and having a large arched toldo at the stern under which three persons could sleep pretty comfortably. Emerging from the Teffe we descended rapidly on the swift current of the Solimoens to the south- eastern or lower end of the large wooded island of Baria, which here divides the river into two great channels.
The country bordering the shores of the Solimoens is healthy throughout; some endemic diseases certainly exist, but these are not of a fatal nature, and the epidemics which desolated the Lower Amazons from Para to the Rio Negro, between the years 1850 and 1856, had never reached this favoured land. Ague is known only on the banks of those tributary streams which have dark-coloured water.
The original territory of the tribe must have been of large extent, for Passes are said to have been found by the early Portuguese colonists on the Rio Negro; an ancient settlement on that river, Barcellos, having been peopled by them when it was first established; and they formed also part of the original population of Fonte-boa on the Solimoens.
The extinct tribe of Yurimauas, or Sorimoas, from which the river Solimoens derives its name, according to traditions extant at Ega, resembled the Passes in their slender figures and friendly disposition. True Passes existed in their primitive state on the banks of the Issa, 240 miles to the west of Ega, within the memory of living persons.
The shrewd and able old gentleman knew nothing of the world beyond the wilderness of the Solimoens and its few thousands of isolated inhabitants, yet he could converse well and sensibly, making observations on men and things as sagaciously as though he had drawn them from long experience of life in a European capital.
Our vessel was nearly drawn into this by the violent current which set from the Solimoens. The towing-cable was lashed to a strong tree about thirty yards ahead, and it took the whole strength of crew and passengers to pull across.
We made acquaintance on this coast with a new insect pest, the Pium, a minute fly, two thirds of a line in length, which here commences its reign, and continues henceforward as a terrible scourge along the upper river, or Solimoens, to the end of the navigation on the Amazons.
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